Strong Medicine
by TyrantFlame
Summary: Tylon Corp. is still running in secret and Busuzima still has time to make shrinking pills... What else can go wrong? R&R! CHAPTER 3 UP
1. OMG

Strong Medicine?

-Guys, something's gone wrong!-

My second BR fic since the last time I wrote. I got the inspiration when I played Bloody Roar 4 at my cousin's place (I don't own a Playstation 2, just Playstation 1) and talked about it with my little brother when we got a bit sugar high. :-) I thought it sounded good and a bit on the crazy side, then decided to type it down for the site.

_**NOTES ABOUT THE STORY YOU SHOULD KNOW;**_

-I'm not really sure as to how many years after Bloody Roar 2 is Bloody Roar 3 and 4, so I decided to set it at 5 years.

-I'm purposely leaving Uranus out of the fic because I haven't unlocked her yet and I have absolutely no idea what kind of a person... erm... zoanthrope she is. (Apologizes profusely to Uranus fans)

-All the zoanthropes live under one roof in a mansion that belongs to none other than Yugo Ohgami. (It's gotta be HUGE if it can accommodate everyone! ;-P)

-My older sister Lunarkry Antares and I have been playing Bloody Roar 2 forever and we never really knew if Stun could talk or otherwise so we decided that he couldn't talk and that he will just buzz for the whole of this fic. Only a few of the zoanthropes can't understand him, so no worries here. (Even if he IS buzzing, I'll kindly leave a translation for you. ;-) )

-Bakuryu(Yugo's little brother) will be called Kenji. (Gets bricked by readers for stating the obvious)

-Every bit of info on Bloody Roar 3 and 4 that I have is based off what I've heard from my best pals, so don't sue me if there is any OOC-ness.

-Finally, I heard somewhere that Shenlong was just born in Bloody Roar 2 and that the gap between Bloody Roar 2 and Bloody Roar 3 (what's the difference between Bloody Roar 3 and 4 anyway?) is his age. Whatever it is, I'm using that idea here. :-)

_**END NOTES**_

So with my comeback in writing Bloody Roar stories, I present to you 'Strong Medicine'. (Please don't sue me for stealing the title of a TV show... I didn't have a good title for this story!)

Please read and review!

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_**-ZOANTHROPE MANSION-**_

Having so many people living under the same roof is fun, but waking everyone up was a chore, especially if you have to use different approaches for each one of them. Alice, being the dutiful nurse, was given the task of doing this tiring chore and she was just climbing up the stairs to the third floor, where Xion, Reiji, Cronos(he shares his room with Ganesha for some odd reasons...), Nagi and Jenny's rooms were when Cronos waddled towards her, in his penguin form. Alice stopped in her tracks. It still surprises her as to how Cronos could still sleepwalk so early in the morning, when he's turning 20 the following year!

The bunny sighed and turned the penguin around so he'd be waddling back to his room. When she peeked into his chambers, as expected, Ganesha was turning the room upside-down, acting as if Cronos had just disappeared into thin air. Didn't he bother looking out the door first? ...Probably not.

Alice gave the tubby little penguin a gentle push on the shoulders and said, "Ganesha, maybe you'd want to REALLY think about putting him on a leash before he kills himself by sleep-walking down the stairs. It's dangerous!"

As usual, the elephant man looked as if he hadn't heard a word Alice said. As a matter of fact, he was acting like Alice never came to the door in the first place and started telling a half-asleep Cronos how worried he was and that he couldn't find him anywhere.

'Sicko...' Alice thought to herself and was going to knock on Reiji's door when it opened.

WHAP!

Reiji keeled over in pain, rubbing his nose, "Oops... Sorry Reiji! Hang on; I'll get the first air kit!" Alice then proceeded to run around in circles, babbling something about where the nearest first-aid kit was while Reiji sighed. How well were the nurses trained, anyhow? The crow grabbed her wrist and said,

"I'm fine. Look, let me ask you something. Is it that you don't know that I wake up at this time everyday, or is it that you don't want to know and is just taking the pleasure out of hitting my nose every single morning?"

"I can't help it if it's my routine work and that your room so happens to be the one that I visit every morning at this hour!" Alice cried, wrenching her hand out of Reiji's grip. She inspected him a bit more before deciding that he was alright and moved on to Xion's room, which was right next to Reiji's.

Before she even got to knock, Xion's voice drawled groggily from behind it, "Go away, Alice..."

If the aforementioned nurse was in her bunny form, everyone could have seen her ears droop. She straightened up however, and continued waking up everyone else.

Soon, everyone was up and about and the huge mansion was entering the first phase of the day; making breakfast. Since there was more than ten of them and that the kitchen was only big enough to let 5 or 6 people to work in it, there was much arguing as to who gets waffles, pancakes, etc. There was an even bigger scuffle where they were deciding who gets to cook for everyone by playing a seemingly endless game of rock-paper-scissors. (Busuzima lost and was supposed to cook, but everyone insisted that someone else cooks...)

When everyone finally got settled with their breakfasts, Uriko and Kenji were talking about what they were going to do on that day, since it was the first day of their school holidays and there was so much to do for the two teenagers. Cronos, being interested in whatever it was that they were going to do, decided that he wanted to join them, though Ganesha didn't really like that idea.

Cronos raised an eyebrow at the elephant man, "If you don't want to come, you don't have to Ganesha. You can just stay home and watch TV."

Of course, Ganesha wasn't very pleased with that option either. When Gado stood up and was going to get ready for work, it was a signal for everyone to start getting busy too. Soon, only the younger zoanthropes and the jobless ones were left at home, almost bored half to death. (Uriko and Kenji weren't allowed out of the house till its noon.)

The hyperactive cat-girl, who was hanging upside-down from the metal bars in the indoor gym, looked at Kenji practicing his kicks on the punching bag and said, "Ne, Kenji-chan, do you have anything fun to do? We've done almost everything we can think of..."

Kenji gave the punching bag one last kick and shrugged, wiping a few beads of sweat off his brow, "I don't know. I thought you had a lot more things in mind."

She pouted, "But most of those things require us to be outside! Yugo's just no fun... Not letting us out till noon! How old does he think we are? I'm turning 16 really soon, and so are you! We should be able to do whatever we want now!" with a practiced flip, Uriko landed gracefully on her feet from the uneven bars, and then sat down on the floor, obviously bored.

The ninja scratched the back of his head, "Well, maybe we can ask Long-san if he'd spend some time with us."

Uriko feigned throwing a tantrum on the floor, "No way! He'd probably tell us to study, even when there's nothing to study! Either that or he'll tell us to grab a book and start reading. Long's great and all, but his idea of fun circulates around books and the Chinese checkers board!"

As if defeated by her own thoughts, the cat lay on the floor, almost motionless as she wracked her brains trying to find something to do. Suddenly, something hit her, "Hey, wait a sec! Ken-chan, did you notice that someone was missing at the table just now? Can you remember who it was?"

The aforementioned boy pondered for a moment. Well, since there were so many of them, it's pretty hard to notice when one of them goes missing. "Let's see... Aniki (that's Yugo, to those who don't really understand Japanese) and Alice were there, Gado and Jenny, Long and Shina, Nagi and Reiji, you and me, Cronos and Ganesha, Busuzima, Xion... Am I forgetting anyone?"

Uriko then helpfully added, "You forgot Stun."

"Oh right. Stun and... Shenlong."

"That's it! Shenlong wasn't there! I bet he's still in his room. Let's go tick him off!" with that said, Uriko didn't even wait for a reply from Kenji. She just pulled him along with her towards the said tiger's room.

_**-FIRST FLOOR, OUTSIDE SHENLONG'S ROOM-**_

"Okay Kenji, go ahead and knock!" Uriko chirped, taking cover behind the ninja, as if the door would explode if she touched it. Kenji sweatdropped,

"Uriko-chan, wasn't this your idea? Don't you think you should knock first?"

"No, no! I insist! After all, you're my partner in crime, right?" the cat-girl smiled cutely at him, to which Kenji blushed and scratched the back of his neck, not really sure whether he should give in to cuteness and kill himself or save himself and risk getting Uriko hurt from Shenlong's temper. The latter didn't sound very inviting, so Kenji gathered up all his courage and slowly extended his hand to knock on the door.

He knocked. Once, twice, three times and braced himself. After waiting for about half a minute, he was quite surprised that Shenlong, who was never in a good mood in the morning, didn't slam the door open and rip his throat right out for disturbing his sleep. In fact, the only sound that they heard coming from the room was the sound of someone coughing.

"What do we do now?" Uriko asked, peeking from behind Kenji.

Kenji raised an eyebrow, "You dragged me into this. Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"Well, I always have a plan up my sleeve, but never a back-up. So instead of starting with my idea, why don't we start with yours?"

"Hm... Good point. I do have a back-up plan."

"What?"

"Easy. Open his window, jump outside and run as if a whole pride of lions with rabies are after me if he tries to bite my head off for waking him up."

Uriko pondered about their 'Plan B' for a moment and shrugged, "Works well enough for me, I guess," she then stepped up to the door and called, "Uh... Shen? You alive in there? We're coming in if you don't mind!" She pressed her ear to the door and heard the aforementioned man say something, but even her sharp hearing couldn't make heads or tails of his mumblings. Turning to face Kenji, she motioned him to follow her and opened the door.

The room was dark, courtesy of the heavy curtains over the windows and it was kind of in disarray, as if the owner didn't have the time to clean it. Something moved under the covers of the bed in one corner of the room and Uriko recognized it as Shenlong, trying to get some sleep. Oh well, he DID come home late the previous night. Always have been, in fact.

"Hey, aren't you gonna get up? It's gonna be noon soon," the cat girl pulled up a chair from near Shenlong's (neglected) desk and attempted to poke him awake. No response.

Kenji scoffed, "Yeah... in 3 more hours..."

A few more pokes and Shenlong finally removed the covers from his face, "What do you two miserable punks want?" he growled, looking more than just a little tired. As a matter of fact, he looked... weak.

"Woww... you look like hell, Shen," Uriko didn't really mean it, but Shenlong DID look somewhat unwell.

The red-eyed man sighed and turned over in bed, attempting to suppress a cough, "Go away and close the door while you're at it," When he expected the two to leave, Uriko's hand made its way to his forehead. On normal occasions, he'd swat her hand away, but he felt too tired to do just that.

The bright-eyed girl raised an eyebrow, "I bet I can cook an egg on your head... I'll go get you some medicine to put the fever down!"

"No need... Just get outta my room."

"I'll be right back!"

"Uriko-chan! What about me?"

She skidded to a halt at the doorway, "I dunno! Read him a bedtime story?" with that, she zoomed off in search of some paracetamol.

_**-GROUND FLOOR, STORAGE CABINET-**_

Uriko looked at the TALL cabinet and scratched her head, "Great... How the heck am I gonna get to the medicine without breaking my neck when I fall?"

"You don't! You're a cat, for goodness' sake!" cried a cheery voice from behind her. Uriko nearly jumped out of her skin and did the first thing that crossed her mind; hit the person behind her.

Her punch landed square in the middle of the person's face and the newcomer fell back, rolling into a few crates of drinks and having the top crates fall on top of him.

-Shortly after that-

Busuzima was nursing a few cuts on his face in front of a mirror in his lab, carefully hidden away behind the medicine cabinet, "Tell me again what I did to deserve this abuse?" he muttered, not really feeling in the mood to experiment on anything after getting a whooping like that.

"Well, uh... Sorry? I mean, you were the one who snuck up to me! I was just trying to get some medicine for Shenlong. He's got himself a fever and Alice-nee-chan isn't around AND the medicine cabinet's too tall for me to climb... Can you help me grab the paracetamol?"

The chameleon's ears perked up at the mention of Shenlong getting a fever, "That's a surprising discovery! Shenlong, getting a fever! Maybe I should..."

"BUSU!"

"Alright, alright! I won't take him down to the lab... Well then, Uriko! Because I 'like' you, I'll let you give Shenlong the new medicine I just made!" Busuzima stood up and walked over to his table, pulling out a vial from one of the drawers that contained a few pills.

Uriko eyed it carefully, "YOU make MEDICINE?"

The Japanese scientist grinned stupidly and said, "Well, if there's one thing I can't fight, it's a disease. Anyway! As I was saying, these pills are some of the few miracle cures I've concocted! It's supposed to cure you of any diseases by speeding up the immunization system in the body..." Busuzima trailed off when Uriko's eyes started to go swirly. Obviously, Biology didn't look like her favorite subject...

He cleared his throat, "Well, to put it simply, it'll put you to sleep for a whole day and you'll be cured when you wake up. Bla-bla-bla, we skip, we dance, we rejoice... yeah. Just give him two and he'll be just fine!" Busuzima handed the small glass vial to Uriko and patted her on the head whilst grabbing a suitcase and stuffing some clothes and some random items into it.

The cat raised an eyebrow, "Where're you going?"

"Hmm?" The chameleon looked at her as if he was going to eat her and just grinned in that stupid way of his, "Well, it's the school holidays, isn't it? I thought I'd go for a vacation myself. Hawaii is just where I'm going! I'll be there till next month! Bwahahaha..." Uriko stared at him as if he wasn't crazy enough as he was, "...Ahem. Well, I gave you medicine, so shoo, shoo! I've been nice enough, time to be evil again, good day!" He shoved Uriko all the way out of his lab and closed the door behind her.

Uriko blinked, the vial containing the medicine still in her hands. Where did Busuzima get the money to buy a ticket to Hawaii from? Oh well, it didn't matter for now. All she had to do then is to grab some water and stuff two of the pills down Shenlong's throat.

_**-BACK AT SHENLONG'S ROOM-**_

Uriko came back just in time to see Kenji sleeping in a sitting position while Shenlong kept on flicking paper balls on his head to see how many it would take before the teenager falls over.

"I got you some medicine and some water!" Uriko chimed, waking Kenji up and getting Shenlong's attention. He eyed the vial she was holding and looked at her,

"...Where'd you get that?"

The cat-girl shrugged, "Who cares? Open up!" she had two pills in her hands now and Shenlong protested,

"Now wait just a- -!" too late. Uriko already fed them to him and made him swallow the glass of water she had in her other hand. Shenlong growled at Uriko and was going to make a swipe at her, but the sudden drowsy feeling that overcame him wouldn't let him stay awake very long.

The tiger shook his head in an attempt to fight the sleeping sensation but could stay awake only long enough to see Uriko smiling and saying, "Good night!" before everything went blank.

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_**-THE NEXT DAY-**_

Stun woke up a bit too early the next morning and looked out his window. It was still dark and it wasn't much of a surprise, since it was only 5 in the morning. He grumbled something about going to bed too early the day before and got out of bed to get a drink downstairs. (His room's on the second floor, right above Shenlong's.)

He made himself some coffee and thought about watching some TV. He was afraid he'd wake everyone up, but if he turned the volume down fast enough, no one would notice. With a grin, he scuttled over to the couch and grabbed the remote control on the coffee table. He switched on the TV, making sure the volume went down to zero and flipped to a movie channel before sitting down.

"OW!"

"..." Did he just hear something? Stun looked around. No one was in sight. Then the voice came again,

"Get off of me...! I can't breathe..." It sounded like a child, so Stun stood up and looked at where he previously sat. A small child, about 4 or 5 sat up, scratching his head and raking back his jet-black hair. When the child looked at Stun in the eye, the bug-man shrieked.

The room suddenly flooded with light and almost every zoanthrope in the household cam down, wondering what the whole commotion was about.

"What's the matter? Did some thief break in?" Shina asked, looking around to see if any of the property was missing just to find out that everything were in their proper places.

Stun, still shocked and wide-eyed, buzzed something in what could have been meant as a stammer in human language whilst pointing at something on the couch. Long raised an eyebrow. If something so small could scare Stun, maybe they wouldn't want to know whatever it was that was there.

Long walked over to the couch and saw a small boy, rubbing his eyes. The sudden flood of light must have hurt his eyes. Otherwise, the child looked harmless. The oriental man smiled and picked the boy up easily, "Well now, where did you come... from...?" his voice trailed off when the boy looked at him with wide, crimson eyes.

The boy blinked at him a couple of times, as if trying to remember where he'd seen him and finally said, "...Father?"

It was Long's turn to scream.

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Chapter 1 done:-)

Anyway, I don't have much to say about this except for the fact that I'm sort-of re-making a fic that my sister once started. But in this case, I have a different plotline to it and that I'm merging two stories in this one. I had ideas for two fics, but I didn't want to write too many stories, so I ended up wanting to just merge them.

Anyway, hopefully I'll have more than 2 reviews... otherwise I won't have much drive to write on, will I?

Please Read and Review! (the 'Go' button at the bottom is just ITCHING to be pressed/clicked on!)


	2. Bondings and Babysitters

Strong Medicine

-Bondings and Babysitters-

Ha, ha, I kinda expected this fic to not have many readers... ...If you'll excuse me, I'll be hanging myself from my bedroom window. (Goes off to try and commit suicide but wasn't allowed to do so until this fic is finished...) Anyway, no matter how few people are reading this, but I'll just do my best. Let's see, where did I leave the story...? (searches a huge box full of stories) A-ha! Here we are! Now, let's get on with the story!

**To RunningSnow: **Here's hoping you still continue reading... :-D

Please R & R!

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_**-THE MANSION, 0800 HOURS-**_

Long was walking off to his room after making a cup of tea for himself and holding a book in front of his face, miraculously dodging any obstacles that lay in his path. The shock of holding a miniature version of his clone and the high-pitched scream he emitted may have marred his memory forever, but now the shock was swapped with confusion. How in the world did Shenlong manage to shrink himself? And to top it off, the red-eyed man, now a pint-sized, red-eyed little boy who was the exact replica of Long himself as a child was calling him 'Father'. (Long had a little argument with him about what to call him...)

The oriental man stopped in his tracks and felt something bump into his legs from behind. He'd expected this and if he wasn't careful, he may well have broken the mug in his hand from the annoyance that he was experiencing. Long whirled around in place and looked down at where his 'stalker' stood innocently, looking up at him as if he was the most interesting thing in the world,

"Can you not follow me EVERYWHERE?" he said through clenched teeth. It was easier to fend the adult Shenlong off... At least Long didn't have to deal with those wide, adorably innocent crimson eyes staring curiously at him. Such a contrast to the adult Shenlong...

"Why?" the boy asked, putting his hands in his pockets like his adult self would. Well, at least some of his original traits still stuck on. He was wearing a black, sort-of oversized long-sleeved shirt and a pair of dark blue slacks that threatened to trip him if he didn't roll the bottoms up. (The clothes were courtesy of Jenny; she took the trouble of finding the little guy something to wear!)

"Because I don't like being followed."

Shenlong looked at the nearest wall for no apparent reason and fell silent for a moment before looking up at Long again and repeating his question, "Why?"

Now it was Long's turn to repeat Shen's earlier action and then said, "Because I prefer being alone," before Shen got to ask 'Why?' again, Long continued, "I'll ask you a question, and if you can't answer me, you have to stop calling me 'Father', or 'Daddy', or whatever pet names you have for me and go play with Uriko or something, alright?"

The little boy pondered for a minute and even without him asking, Long already knew what he was going to say next, "Why?"

"Because I said so. Alright, my question is..." Great... now he can't think of a thing to ask. He then decided to ask a question that he'd heard Kenji and Uriko joke about, "What kind of animal is big, heavy and goes 'clomp, clomp, clomp, squish'?"

Shenlong's wide eyes narrowed, now making him look more like himself. Obviously, the little guy was wracking his brains for an answer as his frown grew deeper. Long took that as an escape and walked off without even waiting for an answer from the boy. He noticed this and called out, "Father, wait!"

Long cringed and stopped involuntarily, "Stop calling me that..." he looked over his shoulder and looked at the boy venomously, just to prove his point. Shenlong pouted cutely, even though he DID feel scared under Long's glare. He cleared his throat and said,

"If I can answer your question, will you play with me?" the tone that Shenlong took reminded Long of himself. He had an urge to agree, but at the same time, he felt that he'd rather not. After a bit of struggling with himself, Long finally said,

"That depends entirely if you can get me the answer. Just giving me an answer and getting it right are two very different things, Shenlong," it felt strange, talking to his clone as a child and as an adult. When Shenlong's face lit up and he ran off smiling (possibly trying to get someone to help him), Long couldn't help but feel a bit happy himself. When he caught himself feeling that way, he made a mental note not to get too attached to the child. After all, Shenlong is still Shenlong.

_**-ON THE SECOND FLOOR, GADO'S ROOM-**_

Alan Gado was just working at his desk. As to what he was working at, nobody was sure. He always seemed to be working on things almost in secret. His concentration was broken when he heard someone knocking at the door. Judging from the sound, it was someone short.

"Come in," he said in his deep voice. There was silence. The door hadn't opened yet and he could hear the sounds of someone jumping just to get at the doorknob. If he listened closely enough, he could've heard the visitor curse under his or her breath.

The door opened shortly after that, taking a bit more time before it swung forwards with little Shenlong hanging, as if for dear life, on the doorknob. The boy smiled at Gado sheepishly as he let the doorknob go and land on his feet on the floor, only to fall on his rump and embarrass himself further. (Gado's doorknob was exceptionally high. He said it was for safety purposes...) Shen picked himself off the floor and looked like he was torn between asking Gado something and running out of the door.

Well, the old lion did notice that the younger Shenlong was somehow afraid of him. When he stood up to approach the little guy and opened his mouth to say something, Shenlong must have thought Gado was going to eat him because his eyes widened and he turned around to run off, but ended up running into the door that he'd worked so hard to open. At that point, he'd forgotten about the question COMPLETELY.

It must have hurt, because the little boy practically bounced off of the frame and the sound that was emitted from the boy's skull didn't sound very reassuring. Gado's single eye widened as he strode across the room and scooped Shenlong up in his arms,

"Shenlong? Can you hear me?" he shook the boy slightly, whose nose was bleeding and had a nasty cut on his forehead. The door must have had a splinter or two sticking out. Shenlong rubbed his face, his eyes watering from the stinging impact and mumbled,

"I'm fine..."

Gado didn't look really convinced, "What's your name, how old are you and do you remember what just happened to you?"

Though intimidated, Shenlong rolled his eyes, pretty much in the same manner as he would have done if he hadn't shrunk and said aloud, as if memorized from a book, "My name is Shenlong, I'm five years old, coming to six sometime next year. I'm considered small for my age and I wish that'll change soon... I don't know who my mother is, but my father Jin Long seems to want to disown me and I just ran into a door... ...And my nose and my forehead hurt a lot!"

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Gado asked, holding his hand up in front of Shenlong.

The boy squinted and said, "...Six?"

Gado looked at the three fingers that he was holding up and shook his head, "Come on, kid. Let's get you cleaned up," with that said, Gado strode down the hallway and downstairs to look for Alice, all the while carrying a protesting Shenlong in his arms.

_**-LATER-**_

"OW! That hurt! Are you trying to help me or trying to kill me?" Shenlong said pointedly as Alice looked like she was trying to tie all his brain cells together.

"Well, if the bandage is loose, how do you expect the medicine to be absorbed by your skin?"

"Can't you do it some other way...?"

"No, I can't. I won't, rather. Now sit still!"

-PULL!-

"**_OW!!_**"

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Uriko laughed when Shenlong told his story. Kenji's face had turned a shade of red from suppressing his laughter, but joined Uriko shortly after that, followed by Nagi, who had nothing to do.

Shenlong's cheeks were bright pink as he folded his arms across his chest and grumbled, "It wouldn't be so funny if it were you..."

Kenji wiped away a few tears and managed to say, in between laughs, "We're sorry, Shenlong, it's just that... Running into an opened door is unheard of!"

"Yeah, and it's funny!" Uriko chimed in as their laughter grew louder. Shenlong, agitated by this, felt his fingers twitch, itching to just hit something until Nagi, who sat across of him, stopped laughing and stared at him as if he'd grown another head.

Shenlong noticed this, "What?"

Nagi pointed at his head. Shenlong looked up and saw the ceiling, then looked at Nagi and frowned, "Are you making fun of me?"

Uriko and Kenji had stopped laughing too and were also staring at him. Uriko then asked, "Shen, where would cat ears pop out if you had them?"

The red-eyed boy raised an eyebrow, "What are you talking about? I dunno, maybe h-" he stopped short when he felt something soft and furry on top of his head, where cat ears would pop out if he had them.

The trio who were with him observed him a bit more before he slowly put his arms down and asked, "Does anyone have a mirror...?" Nagi helpfully pulled a mirror out of her pocket and handed it to Shenlong. He opened it, adjusted the mirror so he'd be looking at the top of his head and as if he'd done a magic trick, he vanished from his seat in a flurry of black and blue.

The trio followed where the blur was moving at an alarming speed and heard Shenlong screech, "DAD!!" and when they found him, he was clawing at Long's door. By then, his hands had transformed half-way into paws and his nails made short work of the door. Not only that, his fangs had elongated, he'd grown a coat of fur that only showed like Uriko's fur would, his feet had formed paws and a tail completed the half-transformation, with the addition of his screeching now sounding like a cat with its tail stepped on.

Long opened the door warily and was surprised to have a small, cat-like creature pounce on him. This resulted in him and his assailant falling over and when he finally got a good look at the creature on him, Long felt a headache coming, "Shenlong, MUST you pounce?"

"But... but...!" the boy looked terrified, motioning to himself as his newly-acquired tail whipped about nervously, "I'm not human!"

"Well, nobody said you were," Nagi said without much thought. It earned her a slap to the forearm, courtesy of Uriko, "Ow! I was just saying it!"

Shenlong looked defeated as he huddled in one of the far corners of Long's room, making Long sigh and wonder what he'd done to deserve whatever was happening to him. He sat behind the half-tiger and said softly, "You're not the only one who can do that."

The little boy in front of him sniffled and looked at him over his shoulder, crimson eyes now a bit teary, "Really?" Shenlong asked and Long nodded. The red-eyed boy turned around momentarily to wipe his eyes with his sleeve before facing the adult and saying in a firm voice, "Prove it."

Long raised an eyebrow, "Here, now?" Shenlong nodded.

He looked at his room, which didn't really have enough space should he transform like he always did, so he stood up and walked to the centre of the widest space in his room. By this time, Shenlong had bounced onto Long's bed, watching intently. (Without him noticing, Uriko, Kenji and Nagi had joined him on the bed, as if ready to watch a movie...)

The oriental man closed his eyes and tipped his head back slightly so as to be able to summon the tiger within him without destroying anything around him. Everything was silent around him as the familiar surge of energy ran through him. He could hear Shenlong draw in a sharp breath as his features changed and fur sprouted from his body. When his transformation was complete, his now green eyes opened to look at the surprised cub.

"...How...?" Shenlong asked, too surprised to even complete his own question.

"We're zoanthropes," Uriko filled in for him, "People who can transform into animals."

Shenlong raised an eyebrow at the cat, "Transform into animals? Isn't that like... lycanthropy?"

"Ly...what?" It was Uriko's turn to look confused. Such big words, coming from one so small...

Kenji decided to spare Uriko the time to flip through the dictionary and said, "No, zoanthropes are similar to lycans, but zoanthropes are not lycans. Lycans transform completely into animals and lycans are just a legend. In the case of zoanthropes, we still retain some human qualities."

Shenlong nodded, "...So is that why father's able to stand up even when he's a tiger?"

"Right. That's one of the human quality that you retain."

"...Okay... Now I have another question," Shenlong looked at the trio behind him and then at Long. They waited for him to speak and after a bit of thinking, Shenlong burst out, "How the heck do I turn back!"

They sweatdropped. Long returned to his human form and Shenlong pointed an accusing finger at the older man, "See! Father does it so easily and I haven't even lost the claws yet!"

Nagi scratched her cheek absent-mindedly, "Well... If it were me... Hmm... He's got a point. How DID we do it...?"

Uriko scratched her head, "Well, it's either we get hit really hard... Or be knocked unconscious."

"...I'm not really ready to give myself another bump on the head..." Shenlong mumbled, motioning to the bandages around his head.

While the trio tried to find an easy solution to the de-transformation part, Long shook his head and said, "Just calm yourself down and picture yourself before you transformed in your mind."

Silence hung in the room and in the background, they could hear Uriko say, "It was on the tip of my tongue!"

Shenlong got off the bed and closed his eyes, pretty much like Long did a few minutes ago and tried. Minutes passed and still, nothing. Shen slumped down on the floor, holding his paw in front of his face, "It's not working..." he said dejectedly.

"Aww... It's okay. Sometimes, it's better to stay like this," Nagi said soothingly, picking the boy up and sitting him down on her lap. Shenlong wriggled out of her grasp almost immediately, feeling uncomfortable in her embrace and opted to hide behind Long's legs instead.

Long sighed, "I'm wondering if I'll have enough time to teach you how to de-transform..."

Shen's ears perked up as he looked at his 'father', "What do you mean, 'if you'll have enough time'? You're not going somewhere, are you?"

"Oh, yeah... Long's going back to China for a week..." Uriko said, earning a slap on the shoulder from Nagi, "Ow! What? Long IS going! He's got his ticket and everything..."

Nagi glared at the cat zoanthrope and motioned to Shenlong with her head. Uriko took a look at Shen's horrified expression and knew she'd said something wrong.

"What?" the boy breathed, looking at Uriko as if he were trying to drill a hole through her forehead just by staring. He looked up at Long, his small hands now clenching the material of Long's trousers, crimson eyes searching Long's brown ones for an answer, "You're not really going, are you...?"

Long looked down at his clone and sighed as he knelt down and patted the boy on the head, "I am. I'll be away for the week, so Gado and I decided to get you a babysitter."

"Babysitter? ...Oh yeah... We're going camping..." Uriko said with realization that she and Kenji were going on a camping trip organized by her school, "But I thought Cronos, Ganesha and a few others are gonna be home. Why bother with a babysitter?"

"Gado asked them to help him with something," Long replied, standing up to return to his reading. The trio behind the stunned child seemed to understand what Long was talking about. For a moment, there was an uneasy silence hanging between them. A sniffle broke the tension in the air as suddenly, the chair Long was sitting in fell back, bringing him along with it, book and all.

The world seemed to spin when Long's head made contact with the floor, carpeted it may be. The tiger closed his eyes tightly, the pain blossoming from the point of impact. There was another sniffle as Long cracked an eye open to see a pair of angry but teary red eyes.

"You're not gonna bring me even if I asked, right?" his voice quivered when he asked.

"Shenlong..."

"Well, don't go! I don't want to be alone, ever! Not after Rinrei!" he cried. Long froze at the mention of the name. Before he could even catch the boy's tail, Shenlong had run out of the room, apparently crying.

"Shenlong, wait!" Long stood up in a hurry to chase his clone and nearly tripped himself, but was rewarded with a slam of Shenlong's door in his face, "Shenlong, open the door," he said, after finding out that Shenlong had locked the door.

"No!" came the muffled reply. His best guess was that Shenlong had a pillow over his head.

"I just want to talk to you."

"NO! Leave me alone!"

Long smiled at the irony, "And who was the one who knocked me chair over, saying he doesn't want to ever be alone?"

Silence rewarded him. He waited patiently and heard someone shuffling out of bed and walking towards the door. The door's lock clicked open and Long waited. Shenlong didn't bother opening the door for him, so he opened it himself, only to see the half-tiger sitting on the bed, looking outside of his window and hugging a pillow to his chest. Long smiled. He didn't expect to live long enough to see himself in such an awkward situation.

He strode across the room and sat on Shenlong's bed, pushing his slipping glasses up the bridge of his nose. Only then did Shenlong avert his gaze to the man he didn't know was his original, "What did you want to talk about?" his tone was cold, a tone that would have made the assassin Long proud.

Long's already sad smile faltered when he recalled the topic he was going to talk about, "...It's Rinrei. How did you know about her?" as far as Long could remember, Rinrei wasn't a child when she passed away. And he was in his late teens then.

Shenlong closed his eyes, hugging his pillow closer to his chest, "...I don't know... I'm not sure myself. It feels like I know her, but at the same time... ...I don't know how to explain it..." he gave up trying to explain and lay sideways on his bed.

Both tigers remained silent for a moment before they both decided to drop the subject. Shenlong, being unable to explain what his memories held and Long being unable to decipher what Busuzima's medicine was capable of doing next. Shrinking Shenlong was strange enough, erasing his current memories and having parts of Long's memories was even weirder.

His train of thoughts was interrupted when a drowsy Shenlong laid his head on Long's lap, "...You're still going, aren't you...?"

"...Yes..." Long said thoughtfully, propping one arm up on his knee and resting his chin in his palm while unconsciously allowing his free hand to stroke the child's head. Shenlong's cat ears twitched momentarily and if Long listened closely, he could hear his clone purring in approval of the stroking. He sighed as Shenlong slowly drifted to sleep in his lap and he continued to stare into space, doing apparently nothing.

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A few days later, Gado got himself a very unlikely visitor. He found himself in the living room, sitting across a teenage girl with dirty brown hair and red and purple stripes in them. She had narrow eyes, but if her eyes were a bit narrower, she would have reminded Gado of Jenny. She didn't have the mysterious look Jenny's eyes had, but her sky blue eyes were secretive and somewhat dark. Fairly tall, even after ditching the rollerblades that she appeared to be very fond of and having alabaster skin that was a fine line between appearing doll-like and pasty depending on the light intensity, Gado couldn't really put a finger as to which country she came from.

Alan Gado leant back in his seat as he sipped on his tea, surprised at how quickly the young lady replied to his ad. As a matter of fact, she was the ONLY person who answered to his ad... After observing the teen a bit longer, discovering that she was built like an all-round athlete, he put his cup down and looked at her in the eye,

"So, Katea Falenby, was it? You said you were willing to baby-sit for me. May I ask why?"

The teenager, Katea, smiled at Gado, "Well, I'd be lying if I said I'm not doing it for the money. Is the kid I'm babysitting really worth that much?"

Somewhere behind them and sitting with his feet dangling off of the railings of the second floor, the child she was going to baby-sit looked at her disapprovingly. She never noticed though. He seemed to disappear from her sight whenever she tried to look at him.

Gado sighed, scratching the back of his neck, "Well, if he isn't worth that much, I won't be getting myself a babysitter for him now, would I?"

"Point taken. I don't mean to be blunt, but how much of a nuisance is this kid to you?" her straightforwardness made Gado imagine a little protesting Shenlong somewhere at the back of his mind. Oh well, just so long as he doesn't start beasting up on her and scaring the daylights out of her, she'll be fine...

"He can get annoying, but he's pretty obedient. I don't think he'll have any problems listening to you," again, somewhere behind him, Katea could hear someone scoffing something inaudible.

Katea brushed a strand of her dyed hair away from her eyes and said, "So, let me get this straight; I start at 10 in the morning and stop at 7 in the evening?"

"It can vary, depending how much work we have, but you'll be paid for the extra hours."

"And if you come home earlier?"

Gado shrugged, "Then we'll have to cut a dollar or two."

Katea seemed to re-consider at this point but ended up saying, "If I wasn't doing this to save myself from poverty, I'd probably be in a video game arcade by now, but I'll do it. When do I start?"

The old lion smiled at her, "Now."

Crickets chirped.

"**_NOW??_**"

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Chapter 2 done. :-)

_**Author's ramblings!**_

I managed to introduce myself! Yes, Katea is me. I'm characterizing her as myself in real life. So, anything the BR cast say here, if they said it to me in real life, you'll know how I react to them...

I've made Shen and Long more father-and-son than I originally intended... And I stuck myself in a corner by mentioning Rinrei... ...Great. Now I need a new plot bunny to either kill the idea or just go with it...

Oh well, hoping more reviews would come... PLEASE click the little 'Go' button at the bottom of the page... For me:-) (sweating profusely in the background)


	3. Panic! In the household!

Strong Medicine

-Panic! In the household!-

Ha-ha, I was listening to 'Panic! At the disco – I write sins not tragedies' when starting this chapter off. I didn't have any other ideas for a title, so I just changed the title a bit. :-D ...That IS legal, right?

**To Kyri: **Glad you find it cute. :-) I wanted to write something cute about Shen and Long that isn't yaoi for once. I hope the storyline will still make you continue reading...

Alright, so we left the last chapter off with Katea's appearance. ...Why are you still reading the author's note? Scroll down till you pass the 'PLEASE READ & REVIEW!' text and just below the broken lines, in case you needed directions... (Gets bricked by readers) Ouch...

PLEASE READ & REVIEW!

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_**-THE FOLLOWING DAY, ZOANTHROPES' MANSION-**_

Shenlong yawned and stretched, stumbling out of bed and after taking a bath, making sure he was completely human again in the mirror (he spent a few hours learning how to transform and de-transform with Long last night...) and putting on a simple, but oversized white T-shirt teamed with another pair of blue slacks that tripped him on the way to the kitchen, he slumped in his seat next to Long's.

He craned his neck, being a bit unable to see anything at all on the table due to his height. Stun, who sat across of him buzzed something at him. The boy raised an eyebrow, "What?" Stun stared at him for a moment before excusing himself and locking himself in the nearest bathroom, bawling his eyes out because his best friend couldn't understand him anymore.

Alice kindly took an overstuffed pillow from the couch and put it in Shenlong's seat so it would lift him up a bit. At least he didn't have to stand on his chair to eat or drink... Everyone ate in silence, with the exception of the younger zoanthropes playing something that involved 'rock-paper-scissors' and slapping the loser's hand over breakfast.

Shenlong had the urge to join them, but first thing's first, "Father, when are you leaving?" he asked innocently, looking at Long out of the corners of his eyes in case the older man was going to get angry at him for asking the question too frequently.

As a matter of fact, Long was getting tired of the question and at times like these, he wondered why Busuzima wasn't around. Busuzima... Always there when you don't need him and never around when you need him. Brilliant. However, cursing the chameleon behind his back wasn't going to do any good, so he decided to answer the persisting question,

"Two days from now."

Shenlong brightened considerably at this, "Good! Then you can send the babysitter home and-"

"I won't do such a thing. I'll be busy today and you need to behave when the babysitter comes, understand?" Long said sternly, putting his fork down to look at Shenlong in the eye.

His clone huffed and finished eating his food, "I'm full," with that said, he downed his glass of water, jumped out of his chair and went off to the game room, where the teenage zoanthropes usually go if they weren't in school. (Or, in Uriko's and Kenji's cases, they've gone off camping already...)

Long sighed, "...I hope the babysitter you hired can handle him, Gado. That stubborn attitude of his is getting on my nerves already..."

Gado chuckled at the martial artist from the head of the table, "Getting on your nerves? You two look like you could really be father and son, the way you talk to him."

The oriental man frowned, looking away from the lion as his cheeks took on an interesting shade of pink, "I can't help it if he looks a lot like me..." he mumbled.

Most of the other zoanthropes had already left to do whatever they did during the day and just as Gado was collecting some of his paperwork from the table, the doorbell rang and he looked at his watch. 10.00 a.m. sharp.

"Hm, she's right on time," Gado strode over to the door and opened it to greet Katea. Today she donned a completely blue outfit, from the blue T-shirt, blue denim jacket and trousers down to a blue pair of rollerblades. Even her backpack was blue...

She smiled, "Good morning, Mr. Gado! I thought I'd drop by a bit earlier, but I ended up taking a detour to the ice-cream parlour..." Katea said cheerily, removing her rollerblades and pulling out a pair of blue sneakers from her backpack. The rollerblades vanished inside of the small bag. Gado thought he was imagining it, but he could swear the shoes with wheels shrank before going into the bag...

Shaking the thought off and letting the teenage girl in, he said, "Shenlong's in the game room. It's the room with the poster on it. You can't miss it."

Katea nodded, "Alright. So all I gotta do is just keep him out of trouble, right?"

"That's right. So, I'll be leaving now."

"Alright. Have a nice day, Mr. Gado!" she waved cheerily at Gado as he closed the door and nearly jumped out of her skin when Long stood up from his seat. Apparently, she didn't notice him there. Long immediately retreated to his room, where he had some packing and some other stuff to do and left Katea to find the game room by herself.

It didn't take her long to find the said room, it had a small banner with the words '**GAME ROOM**' painted on it with bold colours and without a second thought, Katea opened the door. She expected to see some spoiled brat in the room, but there was no one there. The television set was on, exhibiting the Resident Evil 4 game where the male lead character was being left for dead by the missing player...

Katea put her hands on her hips, "I'm in no mood for hide and seek... Now where can that kid be?" she strode across the room, upturned the plush cushions and numerous pillows, including some plush dolls, just in case he was hiding among them.

She sighed and looked around the empty room one more time, "Alright Shenlong, you win. I can't find you now come out!" No response.

Katea then noticed something she didn't notice earlier; there were two doors leading into the game room, and the second door, which was usually closed(it had the writings '**EMERGENCY EXIT**' on it) was now opened wide. At times like these, she wished she didn't agree to babysitting the little imp.

"Shenlong, come out, wherever you are! Come on, it's not like I'm gonna baby-sit you permanently. Can't you at least make today easier on me?" Katea walked out of the room and peeked into the large vase nearby in the hopes of seeing the red-eyed boy in it, but to no avail. He was hiding and it would take Katea forever to find him in the huge mansion...

Long, who was in his room couldn't help but notice Katea running up and down the stairs, going in and out of several rooms (she even went into his room two or three times in search of Shen) and even venting out her frustration on the punching bag in the indoor gym they had. Once in a while, the tiger could swear he heard a pair of small feet scuffling here and there in a hurry, as if being stalked.

For the fourth time, Katea opened Long's door and of the four times she did, Long was now looking up from a book he was reading instead of packing his bags for his trip to China, meditating or re-arranging his books according to the alphabet and according to the colours of the spine of the books...

"He's not here," Long said calmly. Katea looked like she could cry and said,

"Do you mind if I have a seat?"

Long motioned to his chair as she gratefully sat and rested her aching feet, "Gosh... Shenlong really knows how to hide... How do you deal with him when you're feeding him or just teaching him etiquette?"

A small smile crept up Long's features. He seemed to be doing that quite often now... "I don't need to play hide-and-seek with him. He comes to me without being invited."

Katea huffed, "I kinda wish that'd happen to me..."

The Chinese man slipped a bookmark into the page he was reading and closed it, "Would you like me to help you with him?"

"Would I ever! So, where's he likely to be hiding?" Katea leaned forwards a bit in her seat, unable to contain her excitement of getting her hands on the little devil.

Long stood up and motioned for Katea to follow him. They walked just to a room next door, a room that Katea somehow missed for the two hours she searched for Shen. The martial artist twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open. The curtains were open and there, basking in the afternoon sun and curled up like a cat was Shenlong, snoring softly and looking pleased with himself, even in his sleep.

Katea had an urge to murder Shenlong. She'd been running around the house, fearing he'd run out of the house or something when he'd actually just slept while waiting for her to find him! Long observed his clone a bit more and said,

"He'll be awake in about half an hour. Then maybe he'd want you to read him something," he closed the door gently, Katea following behind him and both of them made their way to the kitchen. Besides Long, Shenlong and herself, everyone else had gone out and Katea felt quite uncomfortable. She found Long to be quite attractive and had to mentally slap herself a couple of times to stop herself from staring at the Chinese man. Well, in this case, just mentally slapping herself didn't really work, so she ended up doing it physically a few times to which Long looked at her as if she'd lost a screw somewhere.

Long made them some tea and as they settled down with some biscuits, she decided to ask Long about Shenlong, since she concluded that Long must be the brat's father. She set her cup down and said,

"So, uh..."

"Call me Long," he finished for her, realizing that he hadn't introduced himself.

"Right. Well, uh... Do you think you can spare me some tips as to how you can make Shen listen to me? I mean, you're his father, aren't you?" Long nearly choked on his biscuit at the question. His eyes watered a bit as he tried to prevent himself from choking to death.

Katea sweatdropped and raised an eyebrow, "...Was it something I said?"

Long coughed a bit, then cleared his throat to respond, "Uh, well... Shenlong's not my son. He's more of a..." Long wracked his brains for an answer. At times like these, he wished he had Shenlong's ability to lie spontaneously... Katea waited a bit, sipped more tea, finished the plate of biscuits and waited some more. Still no response from the oriental man, who appeared to be struggling with himself.

It was only when she excused herself from the kitchen to watch TV and actually finished watching an episode of an anime (Kyou Kara Maou, perhaps?) that Long came out of the kitchen with an answer. Even so, she never heard Long's answer because Shenlong came in and challenged her into a fighting game. (And that left Long standing like a stone statue in the middle of the room... Poor guy.)

**-LATER, AFTER A FEW ROUNDS OF GAMES...-**

Katea pat Shenlong on the back as another 'PLAYER 1 WINS' message flashed across the television screen, leaving the Chinese boy fuming,

"I warned you that I'm a game freak, so don't expect me to lose to you in Soul Calibur just because I never played it before," she said with a smile, ruffling Shenlong's hair affectionately as he proceeded to have a rematch with her.

When he lost for the umpteenth time, he was boiling over already and when she reached over to pat him on the head again, Shenlong glared at his babysitter. He snarled at her, his fangs growing longer as he couldn't control his anger and without warning, pounced on the teenager, his claws extended.

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A scream erupted from the game room and Long jumped out of his seat in surprise. Now that didn't sound good... Especially when he heard a snarling tiger cub in the background. He bolted to the room and wrenched the door open just in time to see Shenlong on the verge of mauling his babysitter.

Katea was flat on her back, holding Shenlong's small but powerful paws away from her face as his claws were fully extended and also trying to prevent his teeth from biting any part of her body.

"Shenlong, get off of her!" the oriental man shouted, rushing over to her side and grabbing hold of the boy. Even so, he did get kicked in the face and before he could clobber the boy on the head, he sensed a familiar surge of power from somewhere within the room.

"**GET OFF OF ME!!!**" Katea screeched. There was a flash of light and a wave of energy blew the two tigers back. Long rubbed the back of his head, where he'd collided with the wall behind him and receiving an unintended head-butt to the torso from Shenlong... He sat up and looked around, where some of the furnishing has turned over and a few of the posters have flown off the walls (even though some of them were held up by super glue! O.O;).

Shenlong seemed to have been knocked unconscious, since he was now back to his normal self. He then remembered something. The energy wave he felt was that of a zoanthrope, and it was still in the room, "Katea!" he called, finding it quite a challenge to actually see her as her blue clothes seemed to merge her with the blue carpeting...

"Whoa... what happened...?" he could hear her say as she stood up. Long's eyes widened. The thing in front of him was Katea?

The sky blue eyes were a dead giveaway, but the face was not exactly a human's face... Katea now sported a short snout with a cute pink nose and whiskers, claws in place of her fingernails and if he looked closely, her long sleeves were straining to contain a few more spikes that grew along her forearm. The same held true for her jean bottoms, where the spikes seemed to grow from her ankles up to her knees. Her hair, which would go down past her shoulders if she were in her human form, was now slightly spiked, giving her a resemblance to Shina, hairdo-wise (one or two of the spikes were a different colour, thanks to her hair dye...). To complete the transformation, she now had short but neat dark brown fur all over her body.

The teenager walked over to the fallen television set and lifted it back to its original position. Upon seeing her own reflection on the screen, she screeched in surprise, her hair spiking up even more, making the hidden spikes on her back tear through her shirt and jacket.

She fell over, landing in a sitting position and pointed a clawed finger at the television screen, "WH-WHA-WH-WHAT THE HECK IS THAT!?!?!" she cried shrilly, looking hysterical.

Long couldn't believe it either, actually... But the fact that she was a confirmed zoanthrope was inevitable. He looked down at Shenlong in his arms and put him in the large amount of plush dolls and pillows so he could rest and cleared his throat to explain to Katea,

"Well, how do I put this...? Is this the first time you ever turned into... this...?" he looked at the girl up and don, not really sure whether he should call her a hedgehog or a porcupine... On the other hand, he had to be careful too. Being a zoanthrope, she may be working for someone from Tylon Corporation. The main building may have been torn down already and that only the ruins were left, but that doesn't mean they've stopped operating completely.

Katea stared at him, "I didn't even KNOW I can become this thing!" she cried, now looking at herself, wondering if she could turn back.

Long pondered for a moment. From her hysterical reactions and how she transformed, he could tell she was a complete amateur at this. He sighed, "Alright, calm down and concentrate on how you looked like before you transformed."

The blue-eyed zoanthrope looked at him as if he lost a few screws and Long raised an eyebrow, "Do you want to stay like that or do you want to change back?"

"I can change back?"

"If you can't, why would I be telling you this?"

"Oh. Okay," she did just as she was told and slowly, her human features returned. The spikes were the first to vanish, then the fur, claws, fangs and last but not least, her snout and whiskers. She looked at herself again in the television screen and put a hand on her cheek, "Wow... How'd you know what to do? Oh, and speaking of which, that brat nearly mauled me! And... He could do what I did!"

Long held a hand up to silence her as he felt a headache coming. Well, the least was that she could take the news better than most normal people could and didn't freak out the moment she saw Shenlong become a half-tiger. When she finally shut up, Long spoke,

"Alright, what I'm going to tell you is quite important. Do you think you can take it?"

Katea shrugged, "I've seen weirder stuff on TV and in games, so I guess I can take it, since my mind's not exactly down-to-earth..."

Long nodded, "Good... Your ability to transform into that... porcupine or hedgehog means that you are a zoanthrope."

"A what?"

"A zoanthrope. For now, that's all you need to know and it seems that the great need of wanting to protect yourself triggers it. Are you usually calm whenever you face danger?"

"Well... yeah. Unless if I see freaky things that try and eat me or murder me, then I'll start panicking."

"So, panic is another one of your factors... Anyway, whatever it is, try to remain calm at all times. An emotional swing may be enough to trigger your beast form again, since you can't control it yet..." he said thoughtfully, thinking whether she was going to be trouble or otherwise.

The teenager's sky blue eyes looked into Long's brown ones, "How do you know all this? It sounds like you're a... zoo... whatever you just mentioned."

The Kenpo master sighed as he sat, "Before I tell you, can you keep a secret and swear to me you'll never let anyone else know?"

She quickly held up three fingers together, "Scouts' honour," she said with a smile.

Long returned the smile, "Alright... Everyone in this house is a zoanthrope."

Crickets chirped.

"**_WHAT!!!??_**"

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_**-A FEW HOURS LATER...-**_

Long and Katea had a very lengthy conversation and thankfully, by 4 p.m., Shina, Reiji and Nagi had returned, where Shina agreed to lend Katea one of her tank-tops, since her shirt was ripped by her own spikes... (Of course, it's blue!) The trio were pleasantly surprised by the news that they had a new addition to the mansion, but Long thought otherwise. Not a single new zoanthrope had been discovered ever since the Tylon building was demolished, and now, a few years later, this teenager emerged at their doorstep as a genuine one. He couldn't help but feel that something was going to happen, but couldn't put a finger as to what it was going to be.

Come to think of it, they haven't received a single word as to where Busuzima was. He may be retarded, but that didn't mean he didn't know how to send e-mails, send a letter or a postcard to gloat that he got enough money to buy himself a ticket to Hawaii... If it wasn't for Stun who couldn't find an antidote to the medicine (Everyone called it a poison, actually...), they would be dragging Busuzima back by his tail and/or flip-flops and force him to make the antidote.

When Gado came home that night, Long talked to the French man about Katea. She was there too, and wasn't very comfortable talking about herself. In between their conversation, it turned out that Katea had barely any family left. She attended the same school Kenji and Uriko did, but was in a different class, took up quite a number of part-time jobs to feed herself and occasionally go shopping and lives in the house she inherited from her parents, who mysteriously disappeared. From what Katea had told them, her parents were scientists for some sort of company she couldn't recall.

When asked about her family, she explained that her only family now was her older sister, who worked as a pilot. She was almost never home and even if she did come home, she'll probably only stay there for a day or two, then gets back to work. In other words, Katea and her sister weren't having a very easy life.

Then when they went into the zoanthrope topic, Katea stressed that she never knew anything about being able to transform into a beast and when asked if her sister was one, she just replied with a shrug and an, "I don't know."

Gado thought about it carefully and finally decided that she could either continue living in her own house or stay with them. The decision was now hers to make.

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_**-LATER, AFTER 'WORKING HOURS'-**_

Katea sighed when she walked out of the mansion. Well, even for an avid gamer and the anime freak that she was, this whole thing was crazy! How was she going to break the news to her almost never-home sister?

"Well, I can try sending her an e-mail..." she said out loud, seeing that she was the only person in the vicinity. Then a small voice at the back of her head snorted, '_Yeah, right... Exactly when has she even had the sense of opening her inbox? Even if she does, what are you going to tell her?_' It was a good question, coming out of herself as she mused with the draft she had in mind,

"Hmm... Dear sis, I'm a... zo-what-rope? Anyway, I can turn into a hedgehog, can't run like Sonic the hedgehog, though... And I've been invited to live under one roof with others like me. How many, you ask? Hmm... more than the fingers I have on my hands. Any problems with that? I'm still thinking it over and if I DO live with them, I'll leave a note under the 'Welcome' mat on our porch, if you even bother flipping it over... Just so long as you don't call up the mental hospital or the zoo and sell me to them, I'll let you live," she smiled at the draft and was thinking up of something funnier to add when something grabbed her arm and pulled her back, almost throwing her off balance as she was in her rollerblades.

"Yipes!" she cried as she regained her balance. She heard something that sounded distinctly like buzzing and looked up to see a blue-skinned creature looming over her, wearing a long trench coat and carrying a large box of something on one shoulder. As if that wasn't enough, it had one of its muscular blue arms around her waist to keep her from falling and was lowering its face to hers, the action resembling someone with bad eyesight trying to identify a person.

Katea's consciousness didn't stay long enough to find out what it was going to do. She fainted in the creature's arm.

"Stun! Come on, we still need to pick up a few stuff before... Oh, boy. ...You weren't going to..." a man with brown hair and a cross-scar on his face eyed the bug-man closely over the bags of groceries in his arms.

Stun looked horrified, "_Yugo! How can you suggest that? I'm no pervert, she just fainted!_"

Yugo Ohgami sweatdropped, "Tell me again why she's in your hand."

"_...You don't seriously think I'd just let people run into streetlights just because they were daydreaming, do you?_" he buzzed, looking rather annoyed.

Yugo scratched the back of his head and sighed, "Oh, alright... It's getting dark anyway. Let's take her back with us and have Alice take a look at her."

With that said, Stun hauled Katea over his other shoulder and made his way to the mansion with the wolf, the box of beer he had over his other shoulder clanking quite loudly.

"...Can't you keep the noise down?"

-SWAT!-

"OW! What'd I say?"

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CHAPTER 3 DONE!

The last few lines was totally random... the next chapter onwards will start being serious. And... Katea never went back to her house that night. :-D

Oh yea, I haven't got much to say as footer, BUT...

The 'Go!' button wants to be clicked. It said it'll be certain death for me and this fic if you don't. O.O;


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